


The Guard of the Lost

by Perfidious_Albion



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-28 15:13:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17185373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Perfidious_Albion/pseuds/Perfidious_Albion
Summary: Aegon never conquered. Why not?How long have the Lannisters been digging ever-further in the mines of Casterly Rock? What if they delved too greedily and too deep?A set of snippets in a very different Westeros, exploring the repercussions of an outburst of shadow and flame.





	1. Story for a Sleepless Child

The fire crackled. Chill winter winds howled outside and men who were mad enough to be travellers shivered in the snow, but here the blackening touch of frost was warded off. The cold could enter many things, but it could not enter this hearth, and it could not claim this drowsy child.  
  
“…and so the invaders were thwarted, and soon sued for peace. And as his revenues grew and his lands were peaceful and well governed, Jon the Great became the most powerful of the eighteen kings. And so his heirs have been ever after.”  
  
There was a comfortable silence. The boy adjusted the covers of his bed. His eyelids fluttered again, and for a moment she thought he would go to sleep.  
  
“Grandma?”  
  
She pressed a hand to his forehead. “Yes, sweetling?”  
  
“Can I ask something about your story?”  
  
“ _May_ I,” she corrected, “and yes, if it is brief, you may.”  
  
“Maester Rickon always says there are seventeen kings. He even has books, they say the Seventeen Kingdoms. Is he wrong, grandma?”  
  
The cold wormed its way into her heart. “He is not wrong.”  
  
The boy looked baffled. “Then how can there be seventeen and also eighteen?”  
  
“It’s a courtesy,” she said, “though, I admit, one that’s less common nowadays. It was common when I was a child. The eighteenth king in our land, on our side of the Narrow Sea, is king of exiles, king of the forgotten kingdom, king of the Guard of the Lost.”  
  
“A forgotten kingdom?” He sat up, excited. “That sounds like a good story.”  
  
“None of that!” she said sharply. She pushed him back down on his bed. “You need your rest, sweetling, your chill won’t cure itself. And it is not a story for tonight. It is too late to tell another story after, and for this one there will be no happy ending. You’ll have nightmares.”  
  
“Please, grandma?” He looked up, bright-eyed. “I won’t be afraid. I don’t dream, or I don’t remember them, anyway. I don’t mind listening to sad stories.”  
  
She looked down at her son’s sweet youngest child. “Not like this.”  
  
“I was fine after Ma told me about the Others,” he said defensively, “even when she finished it by talking about all those whispers at the Wall to worry about…”  
  
_Your lady mother is a fool_ , she thought, but did not choose to tell him that aloud. “And you slept well?”  
  
“ _Very_ well.”  
  
She studied his face, and reluctantly conceded to herself that he spoke true. Just like his father, she knew, he was a hopeless liar. “I see,” she said with a sigh. “But you must swear to be very good, and go to sleep straight after this one.”  
  
He smiled at her. “I promise.”  
  
“Be sure to keep to it.” Her tone was a little sharper than she intended. She softened it then. “The tale begins a long time ago, in a faraway kingdom called the west.”  
  
“The west?” He looked disbelieving. “The whole west of the land as one kingdom?”  
  
“Strange though it may sound to you or me,” she murmured, “it was true once. The west was ruled for ten-thousand years, longer ago than the Long Night, by the same royal House: House Lannister. They had good kings and bad, the courageous and the craven, the prudent and the reckless, the open-handed and the miserly, wise men and fools. Thus always, for any line of lords or kings.”  
  
“Even ours?” The boy’s voice was one of innocent curiosity.  
  
“Even ours,” she told him with a little snort. “House Karstark has known its fair share of lords who should not have been lords, I assure you. But I digress. The Lannister kings were famed across the world, for many were brave and mighty and ruled far. But most of all they were famed for their fortress and their wealth.”  
  
“The wealth of the _west_?” He snorted. “May as well speak of the warmth of the north. Grandma, I’m not a _baby_. Everyone knows no-one in the land is as poor as a westerman.”  
  
“That is so,” she said, remaining calm, “but it was not always so. In times long past, the west was united and none matched its prosperity. The Lannister kings ruled over a great stronghold, unlike the seat of any other House: a mountain, hollowed out by long mining, as years turned to decades and decades turned to centuries. They called it Casterly Rock. It was thrice the height of the Wall or the Hightower in the far southwest, and it was nigh impossible to assault. It has walls thicker than any walls that man can build, and even to climb it would render an attacker so exhausted he could scarcely lift a sword. The Lannisters reigned there in splendour greater than any other court in the world save perhaps for ancient Valyria before its fall. No king, not even the Gardener kings, was richer. They named themselves Kings of the Rock, and that was well named, for Casterly Rock gave them both their fortress and their fortune. For the metal that they mined there, extracting an unimaginable hoard each year for ten-thousand years without any sign of diminishing, was gold.”  
  
The child’s eyes grew very wide. “ _How_?”  
  
“No-one knows,” she said. “There is no place else in all the wide, wide world that has produced such a great quantity of gold each year and remained undiminished for so long. There are those… there are some who say the Fall that befell the west came there for the gold, and there are those who say it was the reverse: that the gold was there because of what would become the Fall of the West, of some secret malevolence that, by its evil, made the substance of greed, for purposes malign to men…”  
  
But the boy’s thoughts had been stirred by one word. “Fall?” he asked. “How could such a kingdom fall?”  
  
“Not by the hand of man,” she told him grimly. “I did tell you it is not a happy tale…”  
  
“I’ll be fine, grandma,” he insisted. “I’m not scared of bad dreams.”  
  
“Perhaps.” He was telling the truth, she knew, as he believed it. If it were indeed true, that was all for the good. If it were false, she thought, it would do him no lasting harm, and mayhaps it would teach him some humility.  
  
“I’m _not_!”  
  
“Peace, sweetling.” She placed a hand in his hair. “When the west fell, King Loren perished in Casterly Rock with all his strength and many servants. Lyman his eldest son raised an army and came to reclaim his family’s seat, and he too fell. Other kings saw the west’s weakness, deprived of its great seat, and conceived wicked thoughts in their hearts. Harren the Black, a curse upon his memory, was too busy finishing building the castle of his dreams to make war upon the west yet. However, Mern the Greedy attacked, and the west was too weak to stop him. The Reachmen assailed their neighbours and took their possessions for their own, stealing almost half of the kingdom. King Mern gave those lands to his own lords, to win their loyalty, and that loyalty remained unto his death. A dozen years after the Fall, the Dragon King came across the sea.”  
  
“I’ve heard of the Dragon King!” the boy said excitedly.  
  
Most people had, even children, but she did not tell him so. “Very good. The Dragon King slew Harren the Black in the fiery ruin of his castle, and the Storm King Argilac the Arrogant was slain, and he gave Argilac’s daughter’s hand in marriage to his bastard half-brother. The Vale bowed to him without invasion, out of fear. Mern the Greedy resisted, seeking to retain his conquests, and he, the mightiest of the kings before the coming of the Dragon King, perished with all his mighty armies on the Field of Fire. King Tywell, second son of King Loren and brother to King Lyman who had fallen, did not try to fight the Dragon King. He pledged that the Dragon King would have the west’s fealty willingly, and gratitude too, if the Dragon King would help him take back what was his from the Fall of the West.”  
  
“He didn’t,” said the boy, “else it wouldn’t be a forgotten kingdom.”  
  
“Well thought,” she said, a little dryly. “You’re quite right. The Dragon King summoned an army from far across the land, from east to west. Only the north, Dorne and the iron islands remained unconquered. His servants flocked to the dragon banner, and he and his sisters, who were also dragonriders, rose into the air. Never before in all the land has there been a host to match the host that marched under the three dragons’ wings. Never will there be again. For the Dragon King failed. He went to confront the power behind the Fall, and all the swords of his armies and all the fire of his dragons proved insufficient to do it true harm. The mighty host was sent reeling, and the Dragon King and his sisters fell from the sky. Many were slain in battle, including his bastard half-brother. He was heirless. And so his new kingdom fell to pieces, as the lords in many of the lands he had conquered sought then to rule. That is how the Dragon King died, and why there have never been any others.”  
  
The boy was listening, enraptured.  
  
“Only the Fall itself can rival the Dragon King’s doom in the depth of despair it wrought across the west. Tywell fell in the battle, and so did many noble westermen. Most of the west gave up any hope of retaking Casterly Rock, and it sundered into many kingdoms, as did many places in the land after their conqueror and all his kin and all his dragons were lost. But there were some who refused to accept the doom that befell the west. Lancel, third son of King Loren, became king in his elder brothers’ stead. He and some of his most loyal retainers lived in a plot of land around the desolate ruin that is Casterly Rock, warning travellers of what dwells within and setting a ceaseless watch, so that they may be first to fight it and win back their home if ever it emerges from the mountain. It’s smaller than any other kingdom in the land, smaller even than some lordships. But there are few men as brave in the face of monstrous futility as the Guard of the Lost, and on that account, it has long been custom to respect them by calling them a kingdom, even so.”  
  
“But _what_ dwells within?” said the child. “Who are the Guard of the Lost guarding us against? Who caused the Fall of the West? Who killed the Dragon King?”  
  
“Truth be told, nobody fully knows. No-one who came close to it has lived to tell the tale. But there are whispers, rumours, that some so-called prophets have claimed the gods gave them visions to show them the truth of it. They could easily be liars, but if they speak true, Casterly Rock was mined for so long that the miners reached too far under the surface of the world, awakening a monster from long before the Dawn Age. A terrible remnant of a time before the children of the forest broke and re-wrought lands and seas in their hopeless quest to stop the First Men, of a past that should have been forgotten. But if you do not place your trust in such outlandish tales and simply listen to those who saw it from afar… What killed the Dragon King? Shadow. Shadow and flame.”


	2. Lions Proud and Precarious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter introduces the general format of much of this piece. I'll have a narrative piece focusing on a character or some other event of importance, then a historical view.
> 
> These two-part chapters will hopefully build up to a broader view of what this Westeros is like.

The lords gathered in the solar of Ashemark fell silent when he rose to speak, Symond noticed with a flush of pride. They were listening to him.  
  
“I believe we must think upon the context in which His Grace’s command is made,” Symond expounded. “When doom came to Casterly Rock, we loyally rose to the banners of King Lyman when he called for us. We put our lives and the lives of thousands of men that were entrusted to us in his hands, and he cast them away, charging into some terrible beast of fire and darkness risen from beneath the earth, a monster that he surely knew was dangerous, for how it burnt Lannisport and slew all the men in Casterly Rock and for miles around, even his own father. By that carelessness, we were left without shield or reserve, open to invasion, and Mern the Greedy stole half the kingdom.”  
  
He saw the winces all around. They were westerlords here, one and all. Not one of them would forget that loss.  
  
“King Tywell was hard-pressed to surpass such a disaster, yet he did. He cast aside his family’s crown to be consumed in dragonflame, dishonouring his forefathers, and then he led Aegon Targaryen here with the strength of all the land, so that none would be free from the consequences of Lannister folly, and he led all those tens of thousands to their deaths. And now His Grace Lancel, the Sixth of His Name—” Symond’s voice dripped with mockery— “holds the lofty ambition of being a greater disaster than either of his brothers. The first war against Aegon’s Bane, whatever it is, was the west’s misfortune; we did not seek it; it came to us. The second and the third could perhaps be called courage, for both came with powers greater than that which fought in the war before, though the danger was known to be terrible. To do it a fourth time is not courage, it’s insanity. The Valyrian had three dragons and he had many times more men than we can call upon. How can we triumph where he did not? Our eyes should not be upon the Rock. Aegon’s Bane cannot be defeated, whereas Mern the Greedy, may the Others take his soul, is dead, and the rest of House Gardener with him. The Reach has been made vulnerable. _There_ we westermen should look, to regain the lands we lost in King Tywell’s reign. Heed these words, and heed them well: If we obey King Lancel it will do no good for the west, it will bring us only death.”  
  
“You make sound arguments, my lord of Reyne,” said Harys Farman, Lord of Faircastle, “but the king will not take more counsel. He has made his commands.”  
  
“The king has made his commands,” Symond Reyne acknowledged. “And so I ask you this. As fealty flows from bannerman to liegelord, so duty flows from liegelord to bannerman. On that foundation are lordships and kingdoms built. How dutiful have the three Lannister brothers been? How poorly can a liegelord dispose of his bannermen ere they tell him, ‘Enough is enough’?”  
  
“You speak of treason,” said Lord Martyn Banefort.  
  
Symond concealed his own fear of what might occur. He was risking much. House Reyne would come from this meeting with everything, or nothing.  
  
“My lord, the king has betrayed _us_ ,” the Lord of Castamere declared. “That choice is out of our hands. I don’t think any man here is fool enough to send a third great host against Aegon’s Bane, so we have already chosen that Lancel Lannister is not acting as king. All that we can do is decide whether or not to admit to ourselves that truth and raise up a new king of the west.”  
  
As he spoke, Symond looked around at his fellow westerlords. There was clear agreement from most when he derided the idea of making another attempt to retake the Rock, but rather less with the latter part.  
  
Eventually it was Danwell Lefford, whose mines were less wealthy only than those of Casterly Rock and Symond’s own, who spoke. “I quite agree,” said the Lord of the Golden Tooth, his voice dripping with honey. “I have no more wish to follow a mad king any more than you. The west has suffered more than enough bloodshed for the sake of Lannister pride, and the Reach is vulnerable.” Since the losses suffered to the Reach in King Tywell’s reign, House Lefford’s domain was borderland.  
  
Symond’s heart soared. _It’s working. The west will be ours at last._  
  
“There’s only one difficulty I perceive,” Lord Danwell said with a sweet smile. “Pray tell me this, my lord of Reyne: Why should the new King in the West be _you_?”  


* * *

From _The Years of Blood: Westeros After the Fall of the West_ , by Maester Jonothor  
  
_The Reynes of Castamere claimed the largest of the kingdoms that sprang from the ruin of the Kingdom of the Rock after the death of Aegon Targaryen, due to their great wealth and power, but far from the only one. Three other kingdoms came into being, ruled by rivals of House Reyne: the Estrens of Wyndhall in the northeastern part of the kingdom, the Sarsfields of Sarsfield in the southern part (or rather, the centre of the kingdom as it existed prior to King Mern IX Gardener’s conquests), and the Leffords of the Golden Tooth in the southeastern part (or rather, the east of the kingdom-that-was). And, of course, there were the Guardlands. Especially vulnerable Houses on the Sunset Sea coast, such as the Baneforts and Westerlings, dared not seek kingship, preferring to bend the knee to other Houses such as the Reynes and Estrens, such was their fear of ironborn raids._  
  
_This fear was not wholly unjustified._  
  
_Harren the Black had lost plenty of ironmen in the Dragon King’s Wars, but many men from elsewhere in Westeros had fallen too, whether it be in the Last Storm, upon the Field of Fire, or in the Dragon King’s doomed battle against the entity that would become known as Aegon’s Bane. The ironborn were weakened, but no more than most. After Aegon Targaryen slew King Mern the Greedy and his host, a host of size unmatched and unmatchable by any other in Westeros except, now, Aegon himself, the Lord Reaper of Pyke, Vickon Greyjoy, had been quietly gathering support on grounds of taking a more conciliatory approach to the mainland, certainly not out of sentiment but simply because he feared that otherwise the Dragon King would take offence and wage a fiery war which could not possibly be won by the ironborn. This approach went down in flames as soon as the iron islands received word of the dragons’ death. Qhorin Volmark, Lord of Volmark, the blood heir of House Hoare now that all the descendants of Harwyn Hardhand had passed, rose to power on a surge of violent celebration, swearing bloody vengeance on the people who had bowed to Harren’s slayer. Qhorin, now the crowned King of the Iron Islands, assembled a great war-fleet and landed in the south coast of Ironman’s Bay, not far from Banefort._  
  
_Martyn Banefort, Lord of Banefort, called at once for aid from Roger Estren, the recently crowned King of the Tumblestone. To his credit, King Roger acted quickly. He called the banners of his lords bannermen and they marched to confront the ironborn._  
  
_The Estren men had only remnants of their strength, for many—including King Roger’s father, brother, uncle and elder cousins—had fought with the Dragon King against Aegon’s Bane. Most of their soldiers were too old or too young, and most of their lords commander were new to their roles and inexperienced. Only the dregs of King Harren’s strength had been left on the iron islands while he fought to control the riverlands and beyond, but King Roger had a great deal less than dregs. It was easily enough. The Battle of Blackthorn Valley was as one-sided as almost any in Westeros. King Qhorin IV crushed King Roger, the first and last King of the Tumblestone. The ironborn had lost the lands of the Trident, but now they had a new territory on the mainland._  
  
_The other kingdoms that had arisen from the former Kingdom of the Rock looked upon this ironborn conquest with alarm. Though they had previously been warring with each other, Danwell Lefford, the King of the Hills, and Androw Sarsfield and Symond Reyne, who both claimed the title of King in the West, forged an alliance that was sealed in a sept, for the septons were a great part of the impetus behind it; they did not want their lands to fall to worshippers of the Drowned God. The combined host of the west marched to meet Qhorin IV in battle._  
  
_They failed. All three kings were slain and their host of green boys and greybeards was scattered, and, after a series of long sieges, the King of the Iron Islands took and secured control of the Kingdom of the Rock, excluding the nearly half of it that Reachmen had conquered a decade before, and excluding the small kingdom of the Guard of the Lost, which, then as now, stretches for a few dozen miles around Casterly Rock. For the ironborn, like most, had no desire at all to come close to Aegon’s Bane._  
  
_Though the ironborn would make no more conquests of such size in his lifetime, for they would be so busy holding down this one, King Qhorin IV would be well remembered by the bards of the ironborn as Qhorin the Conqueror, a hero of the old way and the first king of the Volmark dynasty._


	3. The Storm Queen

When she heard of the sailor who had come from Feastfires, Argella could scarcely breathe for excitement. She had received word, of course, but the message on the raven had been panicked, unclear and obviously scared out of the sender’s wits. If she could confirm… “It is true, Ser Richard?” she asked, forcefully keeping her voice calm. “My lord husband and the king and both his queens are dead?”  
  
“Yes, my lady.” Ser Richard was bloodstained and exhausted, and his clothes, though once of fine make, were torn. “The whole army was destroyed, save for those that fled. I was at the rear, I could see little, but I saw enough. It was not cowardice, my lady, I swear. I will fight any man you name. But that… _thing_ … it cannot be fought, my lady. I’m sorry for your lord husband, but I beg you not to try.”  
  
_Avenge the man they wed me to after he slew my father? Why, I’d sooner call for a barrel of wine._ It would not serve to say that now, however. The man had been irritatingly good at persuading other men to follow him. For all she knew, Ser Richard might have been fond of the late Lord Orys. “You are completely certain?”  
  
“I am,” Ser Richard said. “We, that is, the king’s men, the survivors, gathered together at a safe distance—it didn’t seem to mind that—so as to allow wounded men to reach us. We waited until none were coming any more. The king and queens didn’t come, nor Lord Orys, and the dragons weren’t moving for days. All three dragons are dead, I’d stake my life on it, though their riders may be captive.”  
  
_Superb._ “Who slew my lord husband, ser?” asked Argella, sincerely curious. _Who must I thank for my vengeance?_  
  
Ser Richard shuddered. “Not ‘who’, but ‘what’. Something terrible,” he said. “I never saw it from near, but I saw men screaming, burning… I fought in the Last Storm, and it was like those who came near the dragon, but worse, _much_ worse. There was a great shadow in the distance, a far dread wreathed in flame, something dark as a starless sky and vaster than any man. How it was so dark at the same time as its flame was so bright, I can’t say… Fire went before it, and fire went after it, and fire spread all around, wherever it came. Yet men were dying too quickly for it to be only by burning. I wasn’t close enough, I cannot tell you how. The dragons breathed their own fire upon the darkness, all at once, but their flames didn’t seem to hurt it at all, whereas the shadow’s flames… oh, Warrior defend us all. I saw the time it happened, my lady. I saw the dragons falling from the sky.”  
  
_The Targaryens, slain by an unexpected, unstoppable beast of fire._ The vengeance was so sweet she thought that she might choke on it. “Do you know which men of high birth _did_ survive the battle?”  
  
“I am shamed, my lady, I do not. I only know a few names.” He duly gave her those.  
  
“Thank you, ser. You have had a harrowing experience,” she said in a demure, soft voice. “Please do feel free to refresh yourself in our guest chambers.”  
  
“My lady, I am so sorry about your lord husband, I swear, I was only—”  
  
His insipidity was beginning to annoy her. “I’m sure a knight as valiant as yourself did as much as any man could be expected to do,” she lied, and Ser Richard brightened. “You have Storm’s End’s hospitality.”  
  
This time, he took the hint.  
  
Argella went at once to the rookery. On the way, she passed one of the servants at Storm’s End. She grabbed the serving boy by the arm, to stop him from wherever he was going, and told him to head to the stables at once and have horses saddled for her and a party of guardsmen, and then to fetch the guardsmen. He went off running.  
  
The old man in the rookery paused when he saw her. “My lady,” said Maester Ambrose, “this is an unexpected pleasure.”  
  
She cut straight to the point. “How quickly can you make me moon tea?”  
  
He blinked. “If I may, my lady, have you—”  
  
“ _What_ do you think of me?”  
  
“Not at all,” he hurriedly assured her, hearing the danger in her voice. “It is only, Lord Orys—”  
  
“—is not of any concern to us.” Argella smiled. “It appears I shan’t have to bear the spawn of my father’s slayer after all. I ask again: how quickly?”  
  
“Within the hour.”  
  
“Good, as I’ll be leaving for Broad Arch shortly. Send a raven to Lady Staedmon informing her of that, and telling her to keep it secret.” Jeyne Staedmon, born Penrose, probably a widow now, was one of the nearest of her friends to Storm’s End, and it would not serve her well to be among the garrison of Storm’s End once word spread (and she had no doubt that it would), considering… considering. “And send birds to all my bannermen to meet at Bronzegate, with whatever hosts they can. Whichever of them please me most may even be rewarded with a marriage.”  
  
“My lady,” Ambrose said gently, “I fear your happiness has clouded your sense. I fear you will not be given the choice. When he returns from the west, the king will—”  
  
“Your concern is touching,” said Argella, “but unnecessary. No king is sovereign in the stormlands, only one queen, and she’ll make whatever choice she likes.”  
  
The jaw of her father’s old maester dropped. “You mean—my lady— _all_ of them—?!?”  
  
“Oh yes.” Now she smiled at him broadly. “And I think you mean ‘Your Grace’.”

 

* * *

 

  
From _The Years of Blood: Westeros After the Fall of the West_ , by Maester Jonothor  
  
_Argella Durrandon was the first, and not the last, woman to inherit the crown of the Storm Kingdom in her own right, and not have it pass to a brother, uncle, great-uncle or cousin of some distance. After the Blackwater Campaign, she wedded Rolland Grandison, Lord of Grandview, a man ten years her junior, in Storm’s End, and he passed his lordship to his younger brother Androw in order to become Storm King by right of his wife. It was an astute choice, for House Grandison was vassal to none but House Durrandon itself, so the other stormlords did not feel they had been passed over for a non-entity, but sufficiently weak among those vassals and possessing a sufficiently large number of male heirs that it was an honour, not an insult or a threat, for Lord Rolland to take her surname. The continuation of the Durrandon dynasty provided a sense of legitimacy and stability in a chaotic era, as stormlander folk, highborn and low, reassured each other that, once King Rolland’s son Argilac II, who had Durrandon blood in his veins a great deal more recently than the king, inherited the crown, things would be more-or-less as they had long been._  
  
_The immediate aftermath of Aegon Targaryen’s death saw the Storm Kingdom conquer part of the crownlands of Aegon’s short-lived kingdom, as far north as the river Blackwater. Stormlanders took the Aegonfort and, afterwards, Dragonstone by sea, and shattered every dragon egg they found. Though the stormlanders had suffered greatly in the Dragon King’s Wars, strength was a relative thing, and so the Storm Kingdom actually benefited from the coming of the Dragon King in the long term. It had been harmed, but House Durrandon survived, whereas the enemy that had been pressing most fiercely against its kingdom’s borders, House Hoare, did not. The crisis in the Reach relieved another source of pressure on the long-declining kingdom, though, conversely, the raids of the Dornish—whose strength had not been diminished, for the Dragon King never set foot in Dorne before his death—became a much more serious problem._  
  
_All in all, the stormlands were a middle case in how much they were affected by the Dragon King’s Wars. They were more affected than the Kingdom of Mountain and Vale, whose ruler, Queen Regent Sharra Arryn, chose to retreat into isolation in order to recover from those wars’ damage, and hugely more affected than the almost totally pristine Kingdom of the North and Principality of Dorne. However, as the ruling dynasty and its form of government survived with borders not hugely different from before, the Dragon King’s Wars passed the stormlands by without a whisper, compared to the extremity of their effect on the Reach, the iron islands, the riverlands and the west._


	4. Ruin on the River

Myranda stood beyond the great moat of Riverrun, watching the host in the distance. The men were marching in an orderly column, she could see, but the column was too short. They were few, far too few.  
  
Onward they marched, and in her thoughts she prayed as she had prayed in the sept every night since she received that accursed letter. _Let it not be him. You may not have spared the Targaryens, Warrior, but they did not honour you, nor any other of the Seven. Let it be unvirtuous men. Let it not be him._  
  
As they drew nearer, she could see the returning men more clearly, not just as faraway blurs. It was much unlike any other returning army. Their clothes were dirty and torn, often burnt, sometimes bloodstained, but all the wounds were of the sort that could have been obtained by falling or crushing. Where were the men with hewed limbs? Where were the men who had been stabbed? Where were the men with arrow wounds? And where were the dead?  
  
They drew nearer still, and she saw more clearly still, and she saw that the man leading the forces returning to Riverrun was Ser Perwyn Quinceton, a knight sworn to the service of her lord goodfather. Hope shrivelled and died in Myranda’s chest.  
  
“Greetings, my lords, sers, and be welcome to the hospitality of Riverrun.” Her voice was dead.  
  
“Greetings, my lady.” Ser Perwyn hesitated. “I am sorry. They were very valiant.”  
  
“Tommen was always valiant,” Myranda murmured, “even as a boy. Lord Edmyn was much the same. And Axel… gods, he only _was_ a boy, a squire. How could he have fallen?”  
  
“Lord Blackwood rode in the van,” Ser Perwyn said, “as all the lords competed to be. Axel was with him.” _Sad_ , Myranda thought, _that he was a friend, not an enemy, so shortly ago._ She could not see the banners of most of the great lords of the Trident here. She had little delusion that they would remain loyal to Riverrun now. “We had the dragons flying above us, why fear…? We should have had more fear. None of the van survived when the giant shadow came among them. Little of the main host, either. Few of the mighty wished to be in the rear, and that’s where some men lived. Those who had the sense to run and the speed to do it quickly.”  
  
Her temper rose, shocked at what she was hearing. “You _ran_ , while my husband died? Was he not your friend?”  
  
To her surprise, Ser Perwyn took no offence at the implicit accusation of cowardice. He did not look angry, only afraid. “He was, but begging my lady’s pardon—”  
  
“You don’t have it!”  
  
“—you weren’t there.” He continued as if she had not spoken. “It’s one thing to fight men, with flesh that bleeds when you shove a sword at them. Even Aegon was a man, when all’s said and done. There was nothing flesh-and-blood about that great black burning _thing_ , you have my word on it. It was like a moonless night on fire, and it must have gone through gods-only-know how many armed men without stopping for a moment. How can any man can fight that? It’s not cowardice to say he can’t. Not even the dragons could.”  
  
Her wrath departed swift as it had come. She was only tired and grieving. “Very well, ser. I’ll not question you further for the nonce. Come in, and rest.”  
  
He looked more grateful than she had ever seen him.  
  
She invited in the men of the Trident who were still loyal to her lord goodfather— _no_ , she thought with a stab of pain, _to my lord son; Father judge me, how can Samwell be a lord?_ —and commanded the servants of the castle to tend to them. Grooms took care of their horses, the maester tended to some wounded, and the cooks were putting together a great banquet to celebrate their return. Most of the food would not need to be cooked, Myranda knew.  
  
She stayed with them, and spoke with them, and dined with them on fine food that she tasted naught of, and heard their tales of horror and their consolation, and praised them for their good service and their loyalty. She had no doubt she would soon need it.  
  
Myranda retreated to the sept, where she sat in contemplation for a time, feeling the massive weight of responsibility on her shoulders. She had married into a strong family of fierce, good men who stopped at nothing to do what they thought was right. As a maid born to a House sworn to Riverrun, what more could she have hoped for? It was as a dream come true… a dream that turned into a nightmare. None of those men remained alive, and their legacy depended on her. There was only herself to protect her little Samwell now.  
  
Then she ascended to the rookery, and ordered her lord goodfather’s maester to send some birds. She returned to her bedchamber for the night, and there she was, as she knew that she would forever be, alone.  
  
Only then did she permit herself to cry.  


* * *

 

  
From _The Years of Blood: Westeros After the Fall of the West_ , by Maester Jonothor  
  
_The lands of the river Blackwater had long been fractious and prone to infighting, ever since they slipped from the grasp of successive Storm Kings during the era of decline of House Durrandon. The lands of the river Trident had been such for even longer. They had had no long-ruling dynasty since the Mudd kings fell in the Andal invasion, only Houses Justman and Teague, neither of which survived for even a single millennium, and a variety of periods of foreign rule. As such, when the Dragon King fell in the west, few were surprised that the political order that he had briefly imposed fell apart almost immediately._  
  
_The lands of the Blackwater had formed the greater part of the crownlands of the short-lived state known as the Dragon Kingdom, belonging to none but Aegon Targaryen himself. His death left them leaderless. A variety of petty kingdoms sprung up on both banks of the river and in the lands beyond. The degree of success found by the Storm Queen Argella Durrandon in her Blackwater Campaign, especially the symbolically important Sack of the Aegonfort, aroused panic among these lords, and eventually they were largely united under the strongest of their number, Steffon Darklyn, the Dusk King, who ruled the prosperous port of Duskendale. King Steffon proved able to prevent the stormlanders from conquering the whole of the lands of the Blackwater, but he did not win the submission of the other Blackwater kings quickly enough to thwart the stormlanders entirely. Henceforth the lords whose lands lay to the north of the river paid taxes to the Dun Fort. Those whose lands lay to the south of it paid taxes to Storm’s End._  
  
_The lands of the Trident had had a ruler other than the Dragon King: Edmyn Tully, Lord of Riverrun, the first Trident lord of importance to bend the knee to Aegon, who had been elevated to the curious-sounding title of ‘Lord Paramount of the Trident’. His legitimacy as ruler of the Trident came solely from this decree. When the Dragon King and his sisters led their great host to its ill-fated confrontation with the mysterious horror that caused the Fall of the West, Lord Edmyn and his only son Ser Tommen marched loyally behind him. When she received word of the deaths of her husband, his father and all four of the Targaryen siblings, Ser Tommen’s widow, Lady Myranda, mourned for a week. The Dragon Kingdom was plainly done, and she did not wish the lands of the Trident to be subjected once again to years of bloody infighting and eventual foreign rule. To that end, she declared her infant son Samwell to be King of the Trident, by right of the vows of homage that all the Houses of the Trident had sworn to his lord grandfather. In this, she had a powerful ally: Lady Joanna Qoherys, widow of Lord Quenton Qoherys, regent of Harrenhal, and daughter to the late Lord Edmyn Tully. In this marriage alliance the Kingdom of the Trident was rooted._  
  
_Some of the more prominent lords of the Trident, those most grateful to the Dragon King for their liberation, stayed true to their oaths to House Tully. For most, however, no brief year of subjugation to a foreign conqueror could make them forget that until recently they had been no less mighty than House Tully. Why then should they be ruled from Riverrun? Accordingly, shortly after the Dragon King’s Wars ended with the catastrophe at Casterly Rock, Lord Piper of Pinkmaiden was crowned King of the Hills. Lord Bracken of Stone Hedge was declared King of the Red Fork. His ancestral enemy, Lord Blackwood of Raventree Hall, was to be King of Ironman’s Bay. (Neither of them were aware that they were ancestral enemies, as neither of them was old enough to walk.) Lady Mallister of Seagard, Queen of the Cape of Eagles. Lord Ryger of Willow Wood, King of the Blue Fork. Lord Shawney of Greendell, King of the Green Fork. Lady Frey of the Crossing, meanwhile, became Queen of the Green Fork, not by marriage to Lord Shawney but by claiming a similar title. Lord Mooton of Maidenpool became King of the Bay of Crabs, claiming sovereignty over Crackclaw Point as well as the southeastern parts of the lands of the Trident, for they had long had ties to the lords of the Point, who, though fierce loyalists to the Dragon King while he lived, preferred to seek the protection of King Hendry Mooton once he did not._  
  
_This was a daunting array of enemies for the new infant King of the Trident’s men to face, especially as the Trident lords who served him were those who had been more loyal to the Dragon King and had therefore contributed more of their men to his doomed campaign in the west. It was, however, less daunting than it initially appeared to be. Brynden Piper, King of the Hills, warred not only with House Tully but also with Danwell Lefford, who claimed that same title, King of the Hills, from the other side of the pass of the Golden Tooth. House Qoherys ruled a larger domain than any other House in the lands of the Trident, for Harrenhal, though distorted by dragonflame, remained vast and came with tremendous lands and incomes, as the Dragon King had chosen to give his master-at-arms Quenton Qoherys a generous reward. And the lesser lords sworn to Harrenhal were fervently loyal to Aegon Targaryen and to the Houses he had appointed to rule them, Qoherys and Tully, for many of them had been newly raised to their lordships, replacing ironborn lords loyal to Harren Hoare. And most spectacularly of all, four of the river kingdoms that opposed King Samwell Tully were soon to be distracted._  
  
_Torrhen Stark, King in the North, called his banners in no hurry, giving plenty of time for the northern lords to muster armies and bring them to him, when he heard of the fall of House Hoare to the Dragon King. After his crushing victory over House Gardener on the Field of Fire, the Dragon King heard that King Torrhen was heading south with thirty-thousand swords. The Dragon King decided to answer this challenge, but before his army had gone more than a few dozen miles northward, he met emissaries of Tywell Lannister, King of the Rock. They told him of the Fall of the West and made him a fateful offer, attracting his interest, for it was the first time a Westerosi king had approached him, unprompted, and offered not merely an alliance but the submission he sought, and he had heard of the west being a strong and wealthy kingdom. So it was that he prepared his campaign in the west. When the Dragon King fell, there was a northern army hundreds of miles south of the Neck._  
  
_King Torrhen was a cautious man who preferred to avoid big risks and take decisions in plenty of time. That did not, however, mean that he was craven. Nor did it mean that he was unambitious. All of Westeros save for the iron islands, Dorne and the north had contributed many of their men-at-arms to the grand army that marched under Targaryen banners to Casterly Rock and there was swept away. Most of Westeros saw this as a calamity. The King in the North saw it as an opportunity._  
  
_The northmen turned back from their southward march, but, contrary to the expectations of the men of the Trident, they did not return to their own lands. Instead they invaded the dominion of Tytos Shawney, King of the Green Fork, who ruled the southern part of the lands between the river Green Fork and the Mountains of the Moon, while the northern part belonged to House Frey. King Tytos’s men, ludicrously outnumbered, were defeated with ease and all the great castles of his kingdom were occupied by northmen. The northern host forded the Green Fork and afterwards invaded the new Kingdom of the Blue Fork, ruled by House Ryger. This too fell. After that, King Torrhen led a fierce series of battles against King Petyr Blackwood, and his eldest son Prince Rickard clashed with Tully and Qoherys forces to the north of the Red Fork and the Trident, while his second son, Prince Willam, was charged to take Seagard and his third son Prince Beron led an army on the eastern side of the Green Fork to the Twins._  
  
_The campaigns of Torrhen Stark were not exclusively against rebel Houses. However, as the northern half of the lands of the Trident was a great deal more rebellious than the southern half where House Tully and House Qoherys held their seats, his campaigns of conquest were inadvertently very helpful to those who sought to consolidate King Samwell Tully’s reign. As the situation of which Houses defied the dead Dragon King’s decree and which stayed loyal to House Tully was only beginning to develop at the time his campaigns began, he could not have known this, but nevertheless the overall effect was in House Tully’s favour._  
  
_Torrhen’s was an opportunistic conquest. Ordinarily, it would have been futile, for the Trident lords would have retreated into their castles and their men would have been able to slay many times their numbers if the attackers tried to end the siege by storm. Now, however, the Trident lords had lost so many men to the Dragon King’s Wars—principally the conflict between the Dragon King and Harren the Black and the final disastrous campaign in the west—that they could not raise enough men to hold their lands and garrison their castles well enough to stop the invasion. If he had waited even a mere few years, this would have been impossible; but as he attacked so soon after the Dragon King’s Wars, King Torrhen could afford to take grossly disproportionate casualties taking defended castles by storm because his enemy’s strength was so much less than it would typically be. In memory of Torrhen’s conquests and the long years of war he spent defending them, he would be remembered as King Torrhen the Warrior, the most violent King in the North for hundreds of years._  
  
_The distraction of four enemy kingdoms prevented the young Kingdom of the Trident from being easily defeated, as it otherwise would have been. It did not and could not make House Tully and its supporters equal in strength to the sum of Houses Blackwood, Mooton, Bracken and Piper, especially as the Dragon King’s loyal followers had lost more of their men than his lukewarm vassals in his final doomed battle. This fearsome alliance of his enemies, all of whom feared that a strong Kingdom of the Trident which conquered any of the others would soon conquer them, had more resources than what Lady Myranda and Lady Joanna had at their disposal. They were, however, afraid that if they defeated the Tullys the Starks would defeat them. To that end, though they were still strong enough to win the war, albeit more slowly than would have happened without Stark intervention, they chose not to press the advantage. Instead they signed a treaty with Lady Myranda, acting on her son’s behalf, at Stony Sept. The river kingdoms may sometimes war with one another, but by the Pact of Stone they were honour-bound to fight together if ever any of them were threatened by the Kingdom of the North._


	5. Fire in the Gardens

The gardens were aflame.  
  
Strange, that she noticed such ultimately insignificant details in the midst of this. But Leonette had always liked the gardens here. They were so very beautiful. It was sad that they were burning.  
  
Beyond them, the Reach was alike. That once-proud kingdom, at the height of its glory, had been struck down when its armies perished at the Field of Fire. And when the cruel Dragon King who had struck them down demanded that they raise more men for him, to serve him in his campaign in the west, she and Harlen had obeyed him. They had called the banners of the Reach and, if only from fear of dragonfire, the banners of the Reach had answered. It had amazed Leonette to see this new great host that her husband had raised, outside these very same walls that now the invaders had surmounted. Their armour had shone in the sunlight and their banners had flapped in the wind, and for a time she had dared to dream that this place might be truly theirs.  
  
She should have known better. All her life she had lived in Highgarden, as a mere steward’s wife. Her ancestors had been little better. They might be the highest and most glorified of servants, trusted with a role that some lords envied, but ultimately they were only servants, not lords in their own right. Highgarden was the seat of kings, and in this cruel, cruel world it was folly to think that folk like Harlen and her could ever enjoy such a prize.  
  
She had dared to dream, and then Harlen and the Dragon King had died in darkness and fire, and all her dreams had turned to nightmare.  
  
The Reach was infested with kings, fighting for land like rats for scraps of meat. In the southwest Lord Garth Florent had donned a crown and called himself King of the Honeywine, but the High Septon had crowned Martyn Hightower as king of all the Reach, and he was trying to subjugate King Garth while King Ormund Redwyne’s fleet raided the coast of the lands sworn to Oldtown so that King Martyn would not grow strong enough to take away his sceptre. Osgreys duelled with Oakhearts in what had once been called the Reach’s northmarch, whereas the Reach’s current northmarch, the lands that had been the southern half of a different kingdom until the Fall of the West, was full of cadet branches of all sorts of Houses fighting for all sorts of kings, all opposing each other. The east was a mess of Merryweathers, Meadowses and Ashfords. Lord Garlan Peake had had himself crowned in the Dornish marches.  
  
And also from the Dornish marches, Jon Tarly, Lord of Horn Hill, had come here, to Highgarden, pledging his fealty to the desperately beleaguered Tyrells… only to start the slaughter the moment she opened the gates.  
  
The soldiers were burning the briar labyrinth, Leonette could see from the top of the tallest, slenderest tower of Highgarden, where she liked to rest and watch the gardens. It was pretty enough, but not much of a defence. Her garrison was fighting for her, but it was not much, truth be told. The invaders would soon be here. Few of the surrounding Houses, even those in the immediate vicinity of Highgarden, had rallied to the banner of the golden rose. They had loved King Mern Gardener. They did not love her son. She had let in the Tarlys because she _needed_ the Tarlys. Who else did she have? Men might respect a proven warlord despite low parentage, but her poor Theo was a child. All that Theo had was a decree written for his dead father by a dead and heirless king.  
  
It had, she supposed, been a sensible trick. Highgarden, the capital, would be useful for King Jon’s ambitions, and he needed it, for his lands in the Dornish marches were smaller than Garlan Peake’s. This way would cost him far fewer men than taking the castle by storm, and far less time than taking it by siege. One could even call it elegant, if one believed—as Jon Tarly doubtless believed—that there was no dishonour in deceiving ‘upjumped stewards’ who had risen to high lordship on an invader’s whim.  
  
Not for the first time, she cursed the name of Aegon Targaryen. Harlen had not asked for Highgarden, and nor had she. He had given it to them simply because they were there and they had knelt to him. He ought to have known that they would not have strength enough to hold it, and somebody would take it from them. If not for that careless generosity, her Theo would grow and live.  
  
She could not truly hate him, though. Not half as much as she hated Jon Tarly, and every other lord or lady who had denied her, every one of the men and women with bloodlines stretching back for thousands of years who could not fathom the idea that anyone who was not one of them could have nice things.  
  
Leonette stepped forth onto the balcony where she could look down upon the men destroying her dreams. Theo began to cry. He was hungry.  
  
“Hush,” she whispered, rocking him. “Never fear.”  
  
She was not craven enough to allow whatever horror they would do to him.  
  
Leonette took one more step, towards the gardens.


	6. The Forgotten Kingdom

Ed felt it when the ship stopped moving.  
  
He heard Big Rob before he saw him. The hulking brute’s heavy footfall struck the timbers of the ship and sent them shivering under Ed’s feet before he even opened the door. Big they called him, for big he was. Ed had seldom seen taller or broader men. Ed’s cabin was dry and snug and well-enclosed, and his hideous scent filled it fully.  
  
“Stay still,” Big Rob said, and Ed stayed still. He bent down with a single key and unlocked a link on the chain binding Ed’s feet to the cabin. Ed’s feet remained bound together, as did his hands.  
  
“I don’t suppose you’re clever enough to do these?” Ed said, presenting his wrists to Big Rob as if he truly expected him to free them.  
  
“I ain’t no man’s fool,” said Big Rob. “That ain’t what cap’n says. Not till you’re on shore.”  
  
Ed sighed. He had not thought it would work, but he had thought that it was worth a try.  
  
He had no choice but to lean on Big Rob as he was picked up in one arm—on Big Rob’s right side, while the keys were in the burly man’s left pocket—and dragged up to the deck. Several other of his cousin’s men were waiting.  
  
“Are you going to take me to them chained hand and foot?” Ed said archly.  
  
“Aye,” said Captain Lucas. “That’s what his lordship said, that’s what we’ll do.”  
  
The ship, he saw, was moored at an old jetty that now they led him onto. His cousin’s men were close by, on both sides, and in front of him, and behind him. They knew him now, and knew how fiercely he would try to escape this fate; they were not taking the risk that he would jump, even chained as he was, and try to swim away. He tried anyway, and got a succession of hard blows to the stomach for the trouble.  
  
When he was twenty steps off the jetty, they relaxed a little, and the man in front of him cast a glance backward and got out of Ed’s way.  
  
Now that he could see, Ed looked around in fascination. He was in the harbour of a port which he could see at once was much, much older than the jetty. The wood there was not merely salt-scoured or green with moss; it was almost gone, eaten away by hundreds of years of rot. There were plenty of collapsed houses that had once been made of it, now nothing more than rubble, twisted frames of timbers that had rotted so far they had lost their strength and fallen into nothing. What stood still was stone, and it formed empty shells of buildings in which other substances had been, like a skeleton of a city. Even some of those stone shells had been torn up and cast aside as if some mighty hand from the heavens had gouged at them. The cobblestone streets could be seen, for there the ash had been washed away by many years of mild rainfall, but through windows in some of the ruined houses he could still see ash aplenty on the upper floors. And over the cobblestone, on every street, there were bones. Large bones, small bones, complete sets of bones, stray bones, curved bones, straight bones, beasts’ bones, men’s bones, women’s bones, children’s bones. None that Ed saw were white or even pale. Every single set had been blackened and charred.  
  
It was a dozen times the size of any town that Ed had ever seen, and it was a ghost town.  
  
“This is the City of the Dead,” said a voice from behind him. “It used to be called Lannisport. That’s what the Enemy’s work looks like. Good harbours ain’t everywhere, y’know, we ’aven’t got lots… but aye, we also like recruits to see what they gettin’ into.”  
  
Silently, nine men had emerged from a bone-littered alleyway into the place he stood, which appeared to have once been a town square. The one who had spoken was a man older than Ed’s father, old gods rest his soul, with greying brown hair. They were dressed plainly in grey and brown, like any poor traveller, but Ed could tell that the swords in their hands were of quality too fine for that.  
  
_The Lost._  
  
“Here’s the boy,” Captain Lucas said, “as promised.”  
  
The nine Lost ignored him. “Oh yes,” said the Lost who had spoken, after another Lost whispered in his ear, “I almost forgot. Welcome to the Guardlands.”  
  
Ed stared at the city of ash and blackened bones. _So this is the forgotten kingdom. No wonder men preferred to forget._  
  
The captain growled. “Are you goin’ take ’im or not?”  
  
“We’ll see,” said the Lost with a dismissive flick of his eyes. He turned back to Ed. “Boy, we kill traitors to the Lost. We don’t kill scared folk what just got on the wrong side of some war or other. You’re no Lost, and if you don’t want to be, you never can be. Will you make your vows? If not,” and he glanced at Captain Lucas, “the Lost are no hired thugs, to do other men’s dirty work for them.”  
  
_Life or death._ Death was more tempting than this, but he had a duty to be done. “Yes.”  
  
“Fair enough,” the Lost said. He turned to the captain. “Unlock him.”  
  
He did.  
  
“Now I don’t s’pose you fellows would love to stay in the City of the Dead.”  
  
“We’ll stay till he’s bound to the Guard,” the captain insisted.  
  
The Lost shrugged. “Have it your way.”  
  
The nine Lost led him onward, on a long walk, for miles and miles. The City of the Dead fell far behind them. Still they went onward. It was dark, for it was late evening, so he considered escape as they walked, but how could he? There were nine Lost here, as well as his accursed cousin’s men. He would not get far before they struck him down, and a corpse could not do his duty.  
  
Ed could see that not all of the land here was as ruined as the City of the Dead. This land may have been ravaged by Aegon’s Bane before, but if so, time had healed the signs of it. There were septs and squat farmhouses, although none of them looked old or richly decorated, and there were crops that were being treated well, though there were also fields that had grown wild and fallow. This land was self-sustaining in spite of the danger where it dwelt. And he passed plenty of small stone watchtowers with unlit beacons, evenly spaced.  
  
In spite of the distance, Casterly Rock loomed mountain-tall.  
  
At last, when he thought midnight must surely have come and gone, they reached a town bigger than any other they had seen so far, though smaller by far than the City of the Dead. In it he saw a fortress, wide and squat and stoutly built, a greater castle than any he had seen since he left Raventree Hall. It was not lovely, but it would serve.  
  
Another Lost emerged from the castle, alone, clad in a dull greyish-brown hooded cloak. By eye he was indistinguishable from the others. “King Edmund, I presume?”  
  
“He ain’t no king,” Captain Lucas said hotly.  
  
All of the Lost ignored him again. So did Ed. “Yes.”  
  
“I shall speak with him alone henceforth,” the lone Lost said. “You have done well.”  
  
The other Lost inclined their heads, and parted.  
  
“We ain’t goin’ nowhere till he said his vows,” the captain protested.  
  
“Do you doubt the honour of the Guard of the Lost?”  
  
Captain Lucas opened his mouth. He looked around. Ed had thought them almost alone, but it seemed now that Lost were everywhere, close, emerging from every side, hard silent men in roughspun grey and brown with swords of castle-forged steel.  
  
He closed it again.  
  
“Wise,” said the Lost who was not, after all, alone. “You are dismissed. Should you be required, one of the Lost will summon you.”  
  
The captain nodded feebly, and the Lost who had spoken led Ed and his cousin’s men into the castle. He and Ed were alone.  
  
“Where are we?” Ed asked.  
  
“This town is called Kingsrest,” the Lost said. “It was founded by Lancel the Sixth of His Name, the first of the Guard-kings. You will not live here, but this is where all men of the Lost take our vows, at the Sept of Silent Memory. Now, I ask you, Edmund Blackwood: Why are you here?”  
  
“I am the rightful heir of my father, Petyr of House Blackwood, the Third of His Name. He died early, and my uncle Hendry ruled as regent for me. But Prince Hendry died, and his son, my cousin Alyn, who’s older than me, is a man of less honour, a wretched ambitious plotter and traitor; the Seven can’t curse him enough—”  
  
“All this I know,” said the Lost. “I ask you, rather: Why are you _here_? Not, ‘Why are you not in the Kingdom of Ironman’s Bay?’ Why are you here? Do not mistake me; you may be here, if you so choose. By the old bargain, any man, woman or child can swear himself or herself Lost and live among us. We the Lost do not fight the wars of men; we never have; we never will. We do not give men vengeance against other men. But we do give shelter, and that draws some. In the time when Qhorin the Conqueror came and brought much of the west under the rule of ironmen, thousands of westermen and westerwomen took that path, and that was our salvation, for elsewise the Guard of the Lost would have lasted only a single generation. Most of the people of the Guardlands were slain by the Enemy, you see, and of the survivors, most fled after the Fall of the West, not daring to live so close to the Enemy. Those who remained fled after the Dragon King’s last battle. The people who lived in the Guardlands before the Fall are gone. In the early days of the Guard, shortly after the Dragon King’s last battle, most of the west’s surviving men-at-arms followed the Reynes or the Leffords or all the other traitor kings who abandoned what was lost.”  
  
“You say ‘what was lost’. You mean Casterly Rock?”  
  
The Lost’s voice was abruptly sharp. “Do not speak that name.”  
  
Chastened, Ed fell silent.  
  
“We do not speak that name until what was lost belongs to mankind once again,” the Lost murmured. “Perhaps that will never be, but even in a place so desolate as this, men must have hope… I digress. After the Dragon King fell, few men-at-arms were brave enough to keep their oaths to the true king. The Guard of the Lost are the descendants of those courageous men. We need our sons to serve after us, for men from outside are very rarely willing to join us, but those courageous few men were only men, not women. So we made the old bargain that I spoke of. It is mostly women who come to us. Most men prefer the Night’s Watch, despite the distance and the cold, for wildlings, savage and fearsome though they may be, are men. It is one thing to fight men. Our Enemy is something altogether different. Because of the aid the Night’s Watch gave us when our order was young, we respect that choice. There are many ships from here to Shadow Tower. You may have such a ship now, if you so choose, but I do not for a moment believe that you were not offered that choice. Why are you here? Why are you not at the Wall?”  
  
“Because I have a sister,” Ed said, “Barba, who is only three-and-ten. I can go to the Wall. She cannot. And I promised her that I would stay with her and keep her safe.”  
  
It would have pleased him to hate them, but he had no illusions about what would have happened to Barba without this place. The silent sisters did not have the armed men at their disposal to pursue deserters with anywhere near the ferocity that the Night’s Watch and the Guard of the Lost did, and Alyn of House Blackwood, King of Ironman’s Bay, was not the sort of usurper who preferred to take chances with how he secured his power. He could not wed Barba, for much of his support came from the fact that he had wedded the daughter of one of the most powerful lords in the Kingdom of Ironman’s Bay. If not for the possibility of sending her to the Guardlands, she would already be dead.  
  
“Virtuous, if true,” the Lost said. “It is not what I expected. Some who are condemned and lusty… Before you take the oath, I tell you this. You will wed, and she will wed, but we in the Guard of the Lost wed for the sake of the Guard of the Lost, not for our own sake. We need our sons and daughters or the Guard would be no more and the Enemy would roam free. It is not for pleasure. We do not allow adultery among the Lost, for it pits men against one another. Such distraction cannot be allowed in the face of the Enemy. If you choose here over the Wall to lie with women… well, if what I am told about the brothel at Mole’s Town is true, they are more tolerant of such things than we are.”  
  
“I understand,” Ed said coolly, “but that is not my purpose. As long as Barba is here, I don’t wish to change my mind.”  
  
“Good. Let us proceed now to the Sept of Silent Memory.”  
  
They did. Ed followed the Lost through the castle of Kingsrest, going through courtyards and buildings to reach a sept on the other side from the main gate. There were not many other Lost up and about at this late hour, but there were some.  
  
The Lost opened a fine door engraved with rampant lions, and Ed gazed upon the Sept of Silent Memory.  
  
Ed did not know what he should have expected, but he knew it was nothing like this. He had never seen a sept anything like this before. It was much poorer than any of the septs of his father’s Seven-worshipping vassals in the Kingdom of Ironman’s Bay. It had no marble statues or gold engravings. Perhaps the Guardlands could not afford such things. Instead, everywhere there were paintings. Ed’s eyes could scarcely follow the multitude of figures on canvas, all over the sept, covering the walls of the halls of all seven of the new gods. There were hundreds of hundreds of scenes that he did not recognise, associated with various acts and virtues. Every single one of them depicted the forgotten kingdom, the west as it had been before the Fall. From soldiers under red-and-golden banners fighting ironmen in the hall of the Warrior to a sooty miner of Casterly Rock venturing once more to the rock face in the hall of the Smith and many more… Had any detail of life been deemed too insignificant to be put here? If so, Ed could not think of it. From its beauty to its crudeness, from its weakness to its strength, from its mundanity to its glory, these walls held a whole lost civilisation.  
  
The Lost closed the door to the sept.  
  
“That is the Sept of Silent Memory,” he said in a hushed voice. “That is what was lost, and what may yet be restored, if the gods are kind. That is the beauty of what we are fighting for… but do not forget what we are fighting _against_. You have seen the City of the Dead. You know what the Enemy can do. Know this: the Enemy does not stay always in the place that was lost. Sometimes it emerges, to wreak havoc on any men it sees. We do not venture inside what was lost, for it would be folly to fight the Enemy in the dark passageways of a mountain it knows devilishly well. But when it comes forth, we come to meet it. We fight the power that caused the Fall of the West, the power that killed the Dragon King, the power that made the City of the Dead. We fight it. I cannot say when next we shall. The last time it came was fourteen years ago, and before then it was eighty years before that, and before then it was three. But the Enemy _will_ come, I assure you; and when it comes, you will be expected to fight it as best you can. We stand between mankind and the most terrible foe that there has ever been. If you do not wish that to be your fate, speak now, or forever hold your peace.”  
  
Ed thought of the City of the Dead, of ash and blackened bone, two hundred years gone. He thought of an enemy powerful enough to create it. He thought of himself, facing against that enemy, with nothing but armour and sword.  
  
_I promised._ He thought of his sister’s smile.  
  
He was silent.  
  
“Very well,” said the lone Lost. “We do not speak in the Sept of Silent Memory, save for this. Speak after me.” He opened the door and strode in. The other men and women in the sept noticed him.  
  
Every one of them fell to their knees.  
  
Ed looked upon him with amazement, and the lone Lost threw back his head. The ratty hood fell away, and the torchlight of the Sept of Silent Memory shone upon a mane of golden hair and upon green eyes as bright as gemstones.  
  
The golden-haired Lost said, “I, Lancel of the House Lannister, the Ninth of My Name, lord of the forgotten kingdom, heir to the line of Lann, Loren and Lancel, king of the Guard of the Lost, do this day come before the gods old and new and call upon Them as witness. For Edmund of House Blackwood seeks to dedicate himself to the service of mankind.”  
  
Ed knelt under the Guard-king’s sword and spoke the words after the king did. As he spoke, all the others there spoke with him.  
  
“I am lost. I shall remain lost, as long as the Enemy remains. I shall live and love and fight and die to serve, and I shall sire no son who will not serve after me. I and every son and daughter of my line shall rule no land outside the Guardlands. I shall die that other men may live. I shall never forget what was lost, for I am lost, and the forgotten kingdom is remembered in me. The lost are the light that shines against the dark, the moat that holds against the flame, the guard that stands between the Enemy and the kingdoms of men. And if the Enemy comes forth to lay waste to the world, I shall strive to the utmost of my power to see it slain, no matter what the cost may be. I pledge my life and all the lives that may yet come from mine to the Guard of the Lost, until the Enemy or the world is ended.”


	7. The Last One

There had been seven of them once, so alike in form and function that few outsiders could tell them apart. That was ended now. Five had fallen in the wars, the war that ended unforeseen when the host of the second-most terrible of all enemies had attacked without warning and descended on the land. She had fled her home and hidden herself where she thought that the enemy could not find her. It seemed she had succeeded. So had one other; she had felt it. But she could feel that the other was gone now.  
  
Seven there had been, and yet she was alone.  
  
That enraged her, of course, but she was no stranger to rage. To add more was like striking flint in an inferno. She hated all her enemies, and she hated the power that had made her, and she hated all things in this bright, beautiful world which she had not made.  
  
That hatred blazed in her like all-consuming flame, and it blazed out of her. Fire went before her, and fire went after her. The form she had chosen was a giant shape of impenetrable darkness, and the fire screamed about her, the flame of Udûn, the fire that belonged not to any mewling slaves of the All-father but only to those who were brave enough to defy him. She was a shadow wreathed in flame, and the Firstborn had called her and her brothers and sisters the _Valaraukar_ , ‘Demons of Might’.  
  
None of the Firstborn were left now, she knew. The world had changed while she slumbered in the depths of the world. What was once flat the All-father had made round. Valinor was removed—not _gone_ , it was still in existence, she felt it—but removed from the round world; new lands had appeared in its place, on the other side of the world from Middle-earth. The last of the Firstborn had gone to Valinor, and so had those of the _Maiar_ whose presence she had felt in the world above her as she slumbered, the _Maiar_ who had come from Valinor many thousands of years ago to aid in Mairon’s overthrow. That pleased her greatly. There were still Secondborn scurrying around, but she paid them little heed. _Maiar_ could threaten her if they fought well, for she was herself a _Maia_ , though most were not as dedicated to bloodshed and war as herself. So could an exceedingly tiny number of the mightiest of the Firstborn Children of the All-father. But the Secondborn Children of the All-father, the race of Men, were no cause concern for those such as her. No Man that the All-father had ever made, male or female, even those with Firstborn blood, was any threat at all to a _Valarauko_. The only choice that they had against her was whether to die or to run.  
  
She hated them anyway. That was who she was.  
  
For long ages that she had spent slumbering, none had come near her, save for the Secondborn, the feeble stunted things of Aulë’s get, and another race that she did not know. Curious creatures, more gifted in the old ways than the Secondborn though lesser than the Firstborn, probably originating from the new lands that the All-father had made in the remaking of the world. There had been many wars between these Thirdborn and the Secondborn, but ultimately the Secondborn had won, and she had felt none but them in the lands above her for many, many years.  
  
But recently, two-hundred years past, a time that was a blink of an eye to one such as her, an exception had come. She had risen from the mountain lair that she had taken from the Secondborn, to greet them. For they were _Urulóki_ , wrought by the hand and spirit of her master, fellow servants of the Dark Lord. Not that arrogant fool Mairon, whose self-regard by far outstripped his ability, grasping like an ant in the dirt at the position and title that belonged to one who was countless times more powerful than Mairon could ever be. The _one_ Dark Lord. The _elder and greater_ Dark Lord. The _true_ Dark Lord, He Who Arises in Might, who had defied the All-father before the world was made.  
  
She had been pleased to see the three _Urulóki_ until she spoke to them in the tongue of Angband and they could not understand her. Not only were they runts by the standards of their kind—more like the size of Glaurung, Father of Dragons, the first _Urulókë_ whom He had made, than His later masterpieces—though they undoubtedly were. It was worse than that. Their forefathers must have bred with common beasts, she thought, for there was no fire of thought in their minds. The Dark Lord’s _Urulóki_ were not only vast, they were also cunning. Even Glaurung, ere He had perfected His art, had had a cruel cunning mind that had power within it, power to twist minds and bewitch them, power that the Dark Lord had granted to him from His own self. That was gone in these _Urulóki_. How far they had fallen! The spark of the Dark Lord’s self that was within them had faded almost to nothing. These were not _Urulóki_ at all. They were merely beasts.  
  
That was such an insult to the work of Him Who Arises in Might that she resolved at once to put them to an end, and so she did. Ancalagon the Black, who could have squashed these three false _Urulóki_ by sitting down and not even noticed, would have withstood her fury. So vast was he that mountains had broken in his ruin, and so mighty was he that he was the deadliest of the Dark Lord’s servants, beyond even the _Valaraukar_. These lizards were nowhere near as deadly. Their feeble fire did not harm her, for their ability to make it came ultimately from the Dark Lord and they only had a glowing ember of the Dark Lord’s power left within them, as she knew because it had so far decayed that they did not even retain their minds. But she had existed in the All-father’s halls before the beginning of the world, and the passing of time did not harm her. She did not age, and she did not weaken, and she did not decay. The power that was in them was no match for the power that was in her, undiminished since the great wars of the First Age, whence their ancestors would have looked upon these mindless bestial descendants with contempt. She struck them with her cruel whip and her flaming sword, utterly heedless of the three screaming silver-haired Secondborn upon their backs—who were they? They were nothing. They mattered nothing—and the false _Urulóki_ could not withstand the flame of Udûn. What could? Naught that was left in the world. The All-father was not intervening, and nor were the _Valar_ , nor even the powers of the mightier Firstborn. They fought her, and so they died.  
  
Now, ill-tempered, she brooded in her dark cavernous halls. Gold was all around her, a great hoard, and if she were an _Urulókë_ she would have formed it into a bed and slept on it. But she was not an _Urulókë_. She cared nothing for it. Oh, she knew that it had a strange lure on lesser creatures, so it was not utterly useless, but she had no taste for it herself. If some fool had ventured close enough to her to steal it, she would have killed him, certainly, but it would not be to protect the gold; it would be simply because he was close to her.  
  
She could not abide the Secondborn coming close to her. Men were like rats; they bred quickly and they were everywhere. They were irritatingly hard to root out of a world once they had nested in it, at least for herself alone, so she did not try; but she could keep her own home free of their endless scurrying by going out and killing many, once in a while. She would allow the creatures of her master, such as Orcs, to live in her mountain’s halls, but she had not felt any Orcs for millennia. Only Secondborn. And she hated the Secondborn no less than the First, with a passion so powerful that it manifested itself in existence and blazed all around her as murderous fire.  
  
Though naught that was left in the world could withstand her, she alone could not eradicate the Children of the All-father. She was mighty, but there were too many; clean one place, move on to another and they would reappear in the place that had just been cleaned. Besides, the _Valar_ would surely intervene, as they had against Mairon, and neither she nor any other _Maia_ had strength enough to defeat those.  
  
But there was one who could. One who was of their own nature, but greater. They had locked Him outside the world, beyond the Walls of the Night, but He had spread his essence everywhere within it, tainting all things with His touch. As long as the tiniest grain of dust of the substances of the world remained, He Who Arises in Might would remain. Did Manwë Súlimo and his fellow mewling slaves of the All-father truly think they could bar Him from the world that was already His more completely than it would ever be theirs? If so, more fool they. No, their deeds after the War of Wrath would not hold forever.  
  
It might be long ages ere He Who Arises in Might returned, but what did ages matter to such as herself? She had existed before the world and entered it at its beginning, when it was naught but a formless mass. She had lived through the abyssal depths of time, the eldest of all wars, when the _Valar_ had shaped the world and the Dark Lord had undone their shaping and marred whatever they made. Thus they and He had struggled for many, many times longer than all of the ages ever known by Elves or Men. After the First Age she had slept for tens of thousands of years, between the end of the War of Wrath and the time the Secondborn in this place had so unwisely awoken her. What did years matter? The passing of time could not diminish her power. She would kill Secondborn whenever the whim took her, to keep them from growing too numerous here, but she would not eradicate them all with cleansing fire now. She would stay in this small patch of the world and she would rule these dark cavernous halls. The wait would be long, but she would wait with immortal patience and ageless malice, until the hour came when she would greet Him Who Arises in Might as He returned from beyond the Walls of the Night to bring about the end of all things.


End file.
